I'm looking at buying a dirtbike and want to be able to use a hitch carrier with a ball on the back so I can also tow my boat at the same time. Putting the bike in the box isn't an option as I will need the room for clothes and coolers and such....which I suppose could get packed in to the boat. I have looked briefly but one like this is limited to 3000lbs of weight. http://www.hitchcarriers.com/index.p...chk=1&Itemid=1 . My boat with gear and fuel is over 3000lbs. Just wanted to see if anyone was familiar with these things and knew a bit more?

Hey man i did somthing simular to that but i had a stand up jet ski and my boat all together it worked out just fine. I exeded my tounge weight limit by far but my stuck still had plenty of suspension and they always under rate poducts. i dont see any problem with doing what your thinkin at all. i had a 19 foot boat loaded with gear and gas and the jet ski that weighed roughly 350lbs and there was no problem at all.

1) it creates and enormous lever that gives the inertia of the load being towed lateral leverage over the back of the vehicle. if you get in to trouble, you are exponentially increasing your odds of jack knifing the rig.

2) it creates another vertical lever over the rear of the vehicle before you even add the weight of the dirtbike. this reduces the contact pressure of the your primary steering and braking wheels---the front ones.

3) assuming that you are just extending with 2.5" square tubing, how are your reinforcing it? the longer the lever, the weaker it is.

you have to ask yourself this question: why do tractor trailers, goose necks, and 5th wheels have a tow point located above the rear axles of the tow vehicle?

To answer the first post, yes a dirt bike (DB) attachment is feasible, but you will most likely have to make one. You will probably be required to make a frame or bumper attachment separate from the hitch. If you attach it to the hitch, do not create a lever like you see in the photo above. Keep your DB (weight) as close to the truck as possible. As previously stated, the length creates tremendous torque on the hitch that could easily exceed the bolt strength holding the hitch to your vehicle.

A better option would be to create a DB carrier for your boat trailer, if you have the room.

The good thing about a bike is that you could build a carrier and not have to extend it very far at all away from the hitch...maybe about a foot if that. The best option would be to use the truck bed and put coolers, etc in the boat. I built a similar contraption for my quad, but I would never think about towing the boat behind it as well. Even with just the quad on, I am sure I am exceeding my tongue weight limit, especially after you consider it is cantilevered out. The quad weights about 400 lbs and the rack weighs about 100. The auto ride suspension came in handy...

I'm pulling with a 05 F150. I suppose the front mount hitch could be an option as well although I would think the bike would block a lot of view. Ya, I'm not going to go through the work and expense to make a custom boat trailer with flat deck up front. Maybe the next boat. Like I said, I can just through all the coolers etc in the boat and load the bike in the box. Was just looking at alternatives. The other issue I have currently is the box is 5.5 with a roll'n lock so it's down to about 5' and I can't tow with the tailgate down without getting a hitch extension to push the trailer back a bit. Tailgate comes down within an inch or two of the trailer crank.

I had looked for a solution to the same problem and did not find a "simple" solution. The lever action from the extension of the hitch was my primary concern. Adding a hitch up front was the easiest way to keep things balanced. My other thought was to extend the boat trailer tongue (square tubing at the front) by fabricating an extension with the rack built in and having the standard tongue without rack configuration for just towing the boat. This would keep the ball in the same place and not create a lever on the hitch. Balancing the load for the proper tongue weight under each scenario is the next trick. Hope you can figure it out and post the solution.

I know the boat will tow better with a longer tongue as long at you have the proper weight on the hitch.

I see what you mean Tim. If it would work I can do that quite easily considering I don't have a fold away. Mine slides completely out so it wouldn't be hard for me to have an extension made up front. But yes, it would definitely change the tongue weight being longer and having a 300lb bike up front.

Custom means your rubbing money on the problem. I would think a couple hundred in bucks in engineering and a marketable extension could be made. How nice would it be to keep it for installation on you next boat. The kicker is keeping the tongue weight right. Maybe a little ballast in the rear or leveling bars is the solution to that problem.

Tucker im fully aware of how truck frames are built and what bolts,metal can handle. it sounds like alot of people on this thread are mainly concerned about tounge weight witch is a very good concern but know your class of hitch and what it can handle you can weigh your deseions on this. as you can see i had a nissan titan with a class three hitch. these hitches are rated at 500-600lbs tounge weight so with that being said I understand that more length to the arm the, hitch being the fulcrum increases weight. so lets take this formula Work(tounge weight)=Distance (hitch extention) x weight (my boat trailer) witch was around 60lbs tounge weight the length of the extention is 3.5 feet. 3.5x60=210lbs since every thing is in feet there is no need for conversion. im not going to caculate the exact we weight and extention of the jet ski on there but beings that is weighs 350ish ill round it up to 400 even 500 figureing in it is on a extention as well and that gives us a max tounge weight of 710lbs and the manufacture says you can haul say 600 so that puts me at 110 pounds over. Another thing to take into account here is when manufactures give max any thing they have test it to much more than they advertize. If they were to put the real max as the reccomended max then every one would be breaking stuff and they would be getting law suits up the A$$. so for all those that have never ever did any thing over the recomended limit of the product then i sopose they could tell they wouldnt do it and thats cool. doing things diffrent and out of the box raises attention i understand that but i my self poved that a fairly heavy duty truck can handle this i dove and towed like this for two summers never noticing any affect in profomance in breaking or cornering granted i drove like i was pulling a boat and a jet ski together. iv sold the jet ski since but i personlay think if you have a class 3 hitch and wanna put your motor cycle on it and pull a boat do the caculations be smart about it and dont try and drive like a indy car driver your going to be fine.

Don't give up. I saw a company previously that makes additional wheels that are highway capable to help with tongue weight, of course a quick google search resulted in nothing, I know it is out there. I will keep looking and post the link if I can find it.

Look into the hitch extension for trucks with campers, they use a double stacked hitch with a 4ft extension so you can still tow with a camper. The extension then has two chains that attach to anchor points. This is a whole new hitch setup up under the truck though. It is also plenty strong and can tow up to 10,000 pounds still.

I still think a tongue extension to keep the ball at the receiver is the best solution but I do not own a dynamics book so I would need a little help. My worry would be the connection point at the trailer. My dirt bike is 250# so I could extend my bunks and add a simple block at the front roller. I bet I would only need to slide the boat back a couple inches.

Me and you both tim sounds like this dynamics book is pretty important when doing any thing lol. truthfully the front would work out good to put your bike on but now you will have a bike full of bugs possible over heating issues if it blocks your radiator to much and possible interfer with your head lights just some things to think about before sticking things on the front of a truck

I have friends going through the same situation with their boat/jetski, for now they just place the ski in the back of the truck. We have been doing some brainstorming on ideas for removable mounts on their swim deck to hold the ski during transport. Will post pics if we find a solution.

I would highly advise against the use of the swim step. I had two buddies tow long hauls.....one with a big copper and the other with a 50 on their swim decks. Both needed new platforms and gel work. While adding to boat trailer in front issues lie in the turning radius as well. The bike needs to not travel and stay put while the hitch point needs to be behind it

I have friends going through the same situation with their boat/jetski, for now they just place the ski in the back of the truck. We have been doing some brainstorming on ideas for removable mounts on their swim deck to hold the ski during transport. Will post pics if we find a solution.

Not strong enough, I would never to that either. Your also dropping the tongue weight and may get some sway. Perhaps you mean drop the deck and add the ski to a trailer extension...

I saw a guy at a the lake that had a removable extension added to the rear of his master craft trailer that held his stand up jetski the adaptors were welded like hitch receivers on both sides of the main trailer tubes. It was removable and seemed solid as a rock. He took his platform off and basically the ski rode sideways right wherethe platform would ride. They added like 150 lbs of ballast to keep the tongue weight close to normal as it was a single axle trailer. Hope you can grasp my description since I couldn't get a pic. Seems much safer than adding more weight and arm to your hitch. Throw the platform in the boat. Unload bike when u get there. Pull pins and extension then launch boat.